


Whatever this is (I'm glad it's with you)

by kyrieanne



Series: Found Series [1]
Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 16:14:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1232956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrieanne/pseuds/kyrieanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if half way through LBD Lizzie had found a copy of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s mostly forgotten about novel, and read it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever this is (I'm glad it's with you)

**Author's Note:**

> Whatever this is...it's not a typical fanfic. It's something else entirely. 
> 
> A thousand bushels of gratitude goes to Hannah for beta-ing this.

What if half way through LBD Lizzie had found a copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ , Jane Austen’s mostly forgotten about novel, and read it?

She read it and, _Holy Shit!_ It’s her. It’s her life. The names are the same and that’s just weird. She knows her mother has never read this book. But not just the names…but them. _They_ are in this book. Yes, they wear different clothes and for some reason Lydia’s cat is a person, but her name is Lizzie Bennet and this is her life...in a novel.

And a real novel too. She can look it up academic articles on JSTOR about it. There isn’t much. Maybe six? People find the heroine to be flippant and judgmental. The hero too elusive, and the whole love story at the end saccharine.

If this is true then reincarnation must be true, right? Or is she just the figment of some dead English lady’s imagination? Lizzie keeps rubbing her skin waiting for it to go transparent like a hologram. Jane suggests she moisturize more.

Forget her thesis. Lizzie dives into this with everything she’s got. She can’t exactly talk about the book with anyone in her life because…well, because most of them are characters in said book. No, she’s got to figure out how this is possible before she tells anyone. Even Charlotte.

_(And don’t think it doesn’t keep her up at night that she ends up with William Darcy…ew ack.)_

And then, in all her mother’s glorious and convoluted plans, Lizzie and Jane end up going to Netherfield. Lizzie takes the novel with her even though she knows she shouldn’t. What if someone found it?

She keeps it under her mattress because she’s that unoriginal apparently. She password protects all the files on her computer _(and she has a lot  - research is the one part of this insanity that feels right.)_

She tells herself no one will find out. She just needs to keep playing her part. She makes her videos. She knows Caroline is scheming. She knows Bing is half-in-love with Jane. _(To be fair, you don’t need a book to figure that one out.)_

And god, don’t get her going on Darcy. That’s the one part of all this she can’t quite wrap her brain around. She knows his weird insults are really him trying to “court” her. She’s read the novel. He likes her…like like-likes her. It weirds her out because she finds him so robotic and infuriating, but also she feels responsible. This is her story and his feelings exist for the sake of the story. They’re not real. She actually feels a little sorry for him because of all of them he seems the most uncomfortable playing his part, a part he doesn’t even realize he’s playing.

_(The meta of this keeps her up at night…truly.)_

And then one day Lizzie is out by the pool pinching herself just to check to make sure she’s still real and the novel is there under her towel. She’s rereading it to look for clues. When the narrator breaks through and offers omnipresent interpretation, is that Austen? Is that like hearing the voice of God? Maybe if she retypes those parts out there will be a clue…like a code.

So she’s outside soaking up sun, trying to make sense of this in her brain, and she falls asleep. She falls asleep for just a few minutes, but when she wakes up Darcy is there. He sits on the chaise lounge next to her and he’s reading the book!

He’s reading it and smirking. Lizzie makes a noise that resembles a cat coughing up a hairball and he looks up.

"Oh good," he says, "now that you know too, we can finally talk."

 

***

 

To which Lizzie stammers, "WHAT? You knew? Who? When? Where? How? WHAT?"

 

"My mother," he says quickly, and Lizzie wants to ask him more, but she doesn't. She knows just enough about William Darcy to know that his parents' death is not a thing to press.

 

Instead, she sits up and pulls the towel over herself. It feels weird to be sitting in her bikini and chatting to Darcy about their meta-existence as both people and characters in a very real novel. She doesn't know what one ought to wear for such an occasion, but a string bikini and a floppy hat doesn't quite seem right.

 

"So...what is this?" she asks.

 

"What is what?"

 

"I mean...there's got to be an explanation. I have done the research."

 

He bites his lip. "That's a line from your videos."

 

"So?"

 

"Have you wondered if maybe you only have so many lines you can say and they just get rearranged and modernized depending on the situation?"

 

"Like a string puppet?"

 

"Sure. Have you thought about that?"

 

"No! Because who thinks like that? Who thinks about their existence…?I mean I'm sure people do. But, like, who sits around and contemplates what their existence _is_? Like, am I a person or an idea? Or are stories some parallel universe where versions of ourselves live completely different lives so there isn’t one of me, but a thousand me’s running around falling in love with you? No one thinks about these things, because then you start reading about the metaphysics of imagination and looking up case studies in neurology journals about tumors that made people think they were fictional. You hide things under your bed and pray your mother doesn’t find them because she’d think you’ve gone insane. And maybe, you think, that would be good because then someone would get you some help because insanity is really the only option, right? But deep, deep down you’re pretty sure you’re not insane. You’re pretty sure you’re you. Lizzie Bennet. Grad student with crippling debt and a deeply ambiguous relationship with her camera. That’s you. Not some literary construct. You can’t be that and still be you. Besides you have all these feelings. You can’t come from someone else’s head. All the feelings you feel and all the thoughts you think are too real, too self-absorbed, to belong to someone else. You just want to shout, please don’t take them away. Please, let me still be me.”

 

She is breathing heavy at the end of her speech and there are tears in the corners of her eyes that she didn't know she had in her.

 

"Right. Exactly," Darcy says softly.

 

He scoots from his lounge to hers and sits down. He doesn't touch her, but he does hover in her personal space. Yesterday it would have freaked her out to have him that close. But now they’re...in this together. It's a strange intimacy, but not an unwelcome one.

 

"So you don't know why?" she asks.

 

"Nope."

 

"It's just so big."

 

“I know.”  

 

She grips the book. "What do we do?"

 

"I don't know."

 

"But you've been playing your part...I mean that's why you asked me to dance the other night, right? ‘Cause that was weird. No one else was dancing, not really. But it happened in the book so it has to happen here?"

 

He shrugs, "I always knew about the book, but I didn't believe it until I found George Wickham with Gigi. Even after my parents died I didn't believe it.I told myself it was just a coincidence. Then their story happened and I tried to understand. I went to England. I talked to Austen scholars and meta physicists. I had my brain scanned. I was trying to figure out the meaning behind it. But then I met you..."

 

"Me?" Lizzie squeaks.

 

“Yeah, you and even though I’d read the book a hundred times, even though I knew to expect you...I didn’t expect you.”

 

Suddenly, she's terrified he's about to propose. She racks her brain for the plot of the book. Is it supposed to happen like this? She can't remember. More needs to happen before he does...please God _(Jane?)_ don't let him do it now. She can't handle it now...or ever.

 

But trying to think about fate right now with William Darcy staring at her face like she is the answer to a question he’s been asking his whole life... is too much. Instead, she holds very still. Maybe if she doesn't move she'll be like a squirrel. If she doesn't move he won't see her. He won't see the absolute terror in her eyes. He won't see that she's falling apart inside.

 

***

 

Lizzie runs. She runs before Darcy can say another word.

 

She makes no apologies for the choice, and she can only imagine what she looks like, one hand on her hat, and the rest of her limbs flailing under the sun. She scrambles across the patio, inside the conservatory _(Aside: who actually has a conservatory? Seriously)_ , and upstairs. She doesn’t pause to think what impression she’s leaving behind.

 

She runs for her room, slams the door, and closes her eyes.

 

If the book is right he'll propose twice. It’s too early. It doesn't happen at Netherfield. She remembers that now that he's not staring at her.

 

_Please God (Jane?) don't let him propose. Please._

She drinks scotch. From her room she sees him stalk off toward the gardens, away from the house, and she sneaks downstairs to the bar. She drinks and paces her bedroom. She's still wearing the bikini and she would feel ridiculous, but when you're facing the fact that your life was prefigured by an English woman 200 years ago everything kind of stops feeling ridiculous.

 

_What does this mean?_

 

Like...does she have free will? Could she choose to leave Netherfield right now and never see any of these people again? Or is this like a fun house? There is only one way out and that’s to play out the story? She eyes her suitcase and thinks about how far she could get with the meager cash in her checking account. She is tempted to try.

 

But that makes her sad because what about her sisters? No, whatever is happening to her life, Lizzie knows she can't walk away from it. These are the people she loves _(not Darcy...ew, ick...no never him)_... Jane, Charlotte, Lydia, and her parents. She can't just leave them. It's not their fault they are characters in a story.

 

It occurs to Lizzie that she owes it to them to tell them. Or does she? What are the ethical implications of character-ness? She tries to recall every science fiction reference she knows. There are rules about this sort of thing - time travel and knowing the future.

 

But just because it’s written down, does that mean she doesn’t get a choice? Like are Bing and Jane destined to end up together no matter what choices they make? And further, are her and Darcy…

 

There it is.

 

_Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit._

 

That's the thing that has been freaking her out since the beginning because the whole point of Jane Austen's dumb novel is that Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy fall in love. They overcome their vices and after some heavy handed moral situations they end up smushing faces. Or a version of that. Lizzie won't lie - when she got to the parts with her and Darcy she tried hard not to picture it.

 

Cause Darcy is...boring. He's obtuse and pompous and...so _Darcy_.

 

He had been unbelievably calm when they talked by the pool. His steadiness had been comforting even. She remembers the way he talked with his hands. He has nice hands.

She takes a swig of scotch, grimaces, and banishes all thoughts of Darcy's hands from her brain.

 

But she's going to have to learn to work with Darcy if they're both going to get through this. And she's got to get through this…

 

Lizzie puts down the bottle and searches for a piece of paper.

 

Love story be damned. she's not some damsel in distress. She's going to make her own damn fate. No one is going to dictate her life to her. She doesn't care if its literally there in black and white. So Lizzie starts a list... **How NOT to Fall in Love with William Darcy**.

 

***

 

[Somewhere at sometime in someplace _(right this moment in fact)_ readers howl with laughter before pulling their seats up closer to their screens.]

 

***

They make eyes at each other over dinner. There’s no other way to say that. She keeps staring at him and he keeps staring at her. Caroline remarks on it and Darcy says that bit about Lizzie having the handsomest eyes he’s ever seen and Lizzie has to be careful not to wretch into her wine glass. The bastard looks so smug when he says it to Caroline. His cheek twitches and he raises an eyebrow at Lizzie.

 

 _See, see what I’m doing_ , he says silently.

 

 _(No, they’re not telepathic now)_  Lizzie reminds herself of this. It’s just that they’re reading from the same text.

 

It’s like if there was a canon version of your life and everyone knew it...oh the fun to be had with AU’s then! That’s what he’s doing. He’s playing with her. They both know that in the book it doesn’t happen this way. Elizabeth Bennet never hears Darcy’s remark about her handsome eyes. This is different. This is real and Lizzie already knows it happened because she read about it in the book. And now he’s twisting it around and daring her to do the same. He’s daring her to have some fun.

 

She’s going to need more wine.

 

***

 

“We need to talk,” Lizzie hisses when she knocks on Darcy’s door that night. He answers in his boxes and she jumps back. “Don’t you wear clothes?”

 

“It’s three o’clock in the morning.”

 

“But you were answering your door. Have the decency to...be decent.”

 

He snorts and stumbles back into the dark depths of his bedroom. When he reappears he’s got sweatpants and a hoodie on. He makes a little movement with his hands as if to say, “After you…” Lizzie just rolls her eyes and marches down the hall.

 

They go to the pool. There is silver moonlight. Lizzie clutches the book. She found it placed on her dresser after dinner. He must have snuck up and placed it there. She goes to sit on one of the chaises again, but he jerks his head toward the pool. He sits down and pulls up his pant legs, letting his feet swirl in the water. Lizzie sits crosslegged on the side of the pool.

 

“Alright,” he mumbles, “talk.”

 

“We need a strategy,” she starts. She has a speech prepared. Lizzie always has something prepared. It’s in her character _(and she ignores the scattered thought about whether that is her moral-character or her characterization because it’s late and she really can’t hedge words like that.)_

 

“So far mine has been to say my lines and hope to god that at the end of this I’m still me.” Darcy says.

 

She wonders who he means by that. Is he the Darcy who she hates or is that just a character? A part that he’s playing? Is there a truer version of him that is independant of this stupid novel?

 

“People get hurt,” she says, “in this book. My sister Lydia gets hurt and I don’t want that to happen. A love story is not worth my sister getting hurt.”

 

“Yeah, well my sister already got hurt.”

 

She flinches. They’re both silent for a while. There are fireflies blinking. Lizzie loosens her grip on the book and for a moment lets herself just breathe. They sit there and breathe together.

 

“I want to stop this story from coming true. I don’t want to fall in love with you and I don’t want to let George Wickham win.”

 

“What about Jane and Bing?”

 

She swallows. She’s thought about that one all day. Is their love real? It felt real to them and in the end that’s all that matters, right? She finally says. “I want them to be able to make their own decisions. I want to know that they are in love because they chose it. They deserve that.”

 

“Then we don’t tell them.”

 

“We don’t tell anyone.”

 

He ducks his head and nods. “Alright. What else?”

 

“What else?”

 

He rubs his hands together. “You seem to be calling all the shots.”

 

Lizzie gets angry now. She huffs and he laughs a little. She’s pretty sure she’s never heard him laugh this much before.

 

“What do you think we should do?” She blusters.

 

“Like I said - my sister already got hurt. I couldn’t stop that. So I’m just trying to get through this with my honor intact. The way I figure the book ends eventually and I don’t. So I’m only subject to it as long as it takes you and I to...you know.” He exhales.

 

“Fall in love?”

 

“Stop hating each other,” he says. “I think the point of the story isn’t love. It’s two human beings learning empathy. Learning to see beyond themselves.”

 

“Well, that’s fine and good, but I don’t need a morality lesson from you or Jane I-have-a-magical-quill-from-Harry-Potter-that-makes-people-out-of-words Austen.”

 

“I’ve thought of that.”

  
“Of what?”

 

“If we’re real then surely it’s possible other stories are real. Like maybe there really is a Platform 9 ¾.”

 

Lizzie blinks. William Darcy reads _Harry Potter_? Why did that suddenly make him slightly less terrible to her?

 

But she shakes her head. She needs to stay focused. “I need to protect Lydia, to stop Wickham, and…”

 

“Not fall in love with me?”

 

“Yes, not fall in love with you. Not because you’re a terrible person. In fact you’ve been surprisingly...helpful in all this, but because I don’t want to let some book dictate how I feel.”

 

“Me either,” he says, “I’m in charge of my own heart.”

 

“So you weren’t about to propose to me earlier today by the pool?”

 

He laughs, loud and robust. Lizzie’s cheeks burn.

 

“Oh god.” he wipes a tear from his eye. “No, Lizzie Bennet I was not going to propose to you today. I barely know you.”

 

“Good.”

 

“Besides it’s not time for that to happen yet.”

 

“Stop.”

 

“I’m just saying you haven’t seen my letters. I write very charming letters. Swoon worthy. If I recall you quite lose your mind when you read my letters. Both times.”

 

“You’re not funny.”

 

“Fitzwilliam Darcy, stand up comedian. Imagine that adaptation.”

 

“You’re having too much fun with this.”

 

“Fine,” he straightens up. “I’ll be serious and slightly uncomfortable just like you expect me to be.” He clears his throat. “Now tell me, Elizabeth Bennet, how doth I dare to approach this little entanglement we find ourselves in?”

 

“You can help me.”

 

“Help you not fall in love with me?”

 

“And save my sister. Avenge your sister while we’re at it.”

 

“Sounds like the making of a great story.”

 

Lizzie hits him with the book.

 

***

 

“So no one can know that we’re working together,” Lizzie tells him the next morning before breakfast.

 

“And why not?”

 

“How are we going to explain going from mortal enemies to BFF’s overnight?” She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “No, the easiest and simplest thing to do is to play out the story, but make sure certain events don’t occur. That way at the end of it we can part with as little damage to our lives as possible.”

 

“Cause the worst thing that could happen is that you like me?”

 

“I mean the worst thing that could happen is that the damn book turns out to be right,” she says, “Because then what would we be but figments of someone else’s imagination?”

 

***

 

And since they’re pretending to be enemies Lizzie puts it in her videos. She has to admit - it makes a great story. Her viewers are falling over themselves.

 

***

 

When Darcy shows up in Episode 60?

 

Yeah, that was planned. Was she still livid for sending Bing away? Absolutely.

 

They’d argued about that one the entire time she was at Netherfield. They crept out into the gardens and paced among the jasmine.

 

“Why do we have to break their hearts? Why can’t they just stay together?” Lizzie sputtered.

 

“Because if Bing doesn’t go then you don’t have a reason to hate me.”

 

“I don’t hate you,” she said petulantly.

 

“You need a reason because otherwise when I confess my feelings to you, why wouldn’t you just reciprocate them?”

 

“Because I have a brain. Just because I don’t hate you doesn’t mean I have to love you. A declaration of love doesn’t obligate a woman.”

 

He collapsed on the ground next to her and she was struck by how long he is - all arms and legs. He rubbed his hands over his face and groaned. she wanted to lean over and pat his shoulder. Actually she wanted to lean over and nudge him onto his back and then hover over him and…

 

 _(Alright...yeah that has to stop!)_ She promised herself it was just lust. Darcy is an attractive man and it had been awhile. She’d be insane not to notice him. That’s all it was. Plain, simple lust.

 

“Fine,” she sighed, “We’ll break up Jane and Bing.”

 

But then she watches her sister break down over snickerdoodles and Lizzie hates Darcy. She hates herself more. But she hates Darcy and she can’t exactly tell him that, so when he shows up in Episode 60 she does. She tells him through all the lines she’s supposed to say that he is a cold, unfeeling man to do what he did to Jane.

 

“You are the last man in the world I could ever fall in love with,” she shouts.

 

And there is a moment when they’re just breathing when he seems genuinely hurt. His eyes search hers and she has to remind herself that its all for the camera. She has to remind herself that this thing they’re doing - it isn’t real.

 

“I’m sorry to have caused you so much pain,” he says, “I should have acted differently. I was unaware of your feelings toward me.”

 

“You were unaware?” she seethes, “then why don’t you watch my videos?”

 

And that...that was not part of the story. It wasn’t part of their plan for her to point out her videos. But the consequences of what they’ve done is right there in her videos. Has he been watching along? Has he seen her sister breakdown? Did he replay it over and over in his mind like she did?

 

Darcy recovers. “What videos?” he says and they both stare at the camera as if looking into a deep dark hole.

 

***

 

The letter he wrote in Episode 61?

 

It didn’t say anything. It was just a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon.

 

The wax seal? Yeah, that was real.

 

That was Darcy’s cheeky sense of humor, and Lizzie suspects, his actual self. In the intervening months of pretending to hate him she’s discovered that he really is old-fashioned like that. He is formal and a bit pompous. But he’s also wry and self-deprecating.

 

They don’t have a chance to talk before he leaves Collins & Collins. The awkwardness of Episode 61 is real. When he says that he doesn’t care about the videos her brain works in overtime to figure out what that means. Is it part of their act? It didn’t feel like a line. It feels truer some how.

 

But he’s gone and if all works according to plan Lizzie won’t see him again until after Jane and Bing get back together. She won’t see him until the final act.

 

***

 

Lizzie’s plan is simple. Explain to Lydia - without telling her the truth - that if she continues on the path she’s on nothing good will come of it. The partying and the boys and the attention seeking behavior will lead her right into the arms of George Wickham.

 

Except...Lizzie can’t really tell her that exactly because who would believe her?

 

So Lizzie buys a book. When she is unsure about how to do something Lizzie finds a book to help her. _The Party Girl’s Guide to Growing Up_ seems perfect for such an occasion.

 

Lizzie is very proud of herself.

 

***

 

She yells at George Wickham in the grocery store and hopes it’s enough to dissuade him.

 

***

 

At some point she realizes that she’s been ignoring her thesis in lieu of trying to not end up the happily-ever-after in a 19th century novel and trudges to the library.

 

She sneers at the books, blaming each of them for her predicament, and when she gets home she finds that Lydia has gone to L.A. to see Jane.  

 

***

 

Could she watch Lydia’s vlogs? Yes.

 

Does she? No.

 

Why? Because she already knows what she’ll see. Her two sisters both hurt. Jane’s heart is broken and Lydia believes Lizzie is ashamed of her. All of this because Lizzie is a damn story book character and she can’t seem to escape it.

 

***

 

Lizzie has read her own love story. She knows that she’s supposed to fall in love with William Darcy at Pemberley. She gets it. Elizabeth Bennet is impressed with the beauty of the place. It reflects the beauty of the man. His staff echo his kindness and generosity. They reflect his values. Blah. Blah. Blah.

 

Lizzie can analyze literature. That’s not the problem. She gets what she’s _supposed_ to think.

 

What does she actually think when she walks around Pemberley Digital?

 

That she wants to work here. She wants to be part of this place with all its creative suites and departments. There’s an energy to it that hums at the same frequency as her heart and it has nothing to do with William Darcy. She holds tightly onto the handle of her camera bag and bites down hard on her lip.

 

When she sees Pemberley Digital Lizzie doesn’t understand William Darcy better. She understands herself.

 

She belongs in a place like this.

 

She was made for it.

 

***

 

Gigi.

 

Oh, Gigi is lovely. That’s what Lizzie texts Darcy after Episode 77.

 

 _Thank you._ He texts back. Simple. Straight forward. Unequivocally Darcy.

 

It’s the first thing they’ve said to each other since his fake declaration of love at Collins & Collins, but it makes her smile.

 

_You’re really in L.A., right? ‘Cause I know I’m supposed to run into you at some point._

 

His reply takes a few minutes and Lizzie finds herself shifting back and forth waiting for it.

 

_It depends on what you want._

 

What she wanted? What she wanted was to protect Lydia from Wickham, but her plan failed.

 

 _Come home_ , she texts.

 

***

 

She asked him to come home, but she didn’t expect that it would be that day. So when Gigi shoves him into her office Lizzie is surprised. She stands there knowing that the camera is capturing their torsos and every moment. They try to communicate silently with their eyes since Gigi is standing right outside the door.

 

But eyebrows can only say so much _(Darcy’s actually say a lot. How did she not notice he has such expressive eyebrows?)_ and they stammer through forced conversation until Gigi shoves them down into their seats and it’s time to perform.

 

He offers to drive her to dinner with Dr. Gardner and she declines. She didn’t realize what being in the same room with him would be like. It’s disconcerting to share a secret with someone like that and then to go away from them. When you seem them again you don’t know if that intimacy is restored or if it needs to be earned back.

 

The line about the hills in San Francisco?

 

It’s an apology, she decides. He wants her to know he’s seen the videos since Netherfield - all of them, including the ones where their choices hurt her sisters. He’s trying to tell her he knows. He knows what they’ve allowed to happen to the people they love. Lizzie touches his arm as a way to tell him, _Thank you._

 

***

 

“Tell me about your mother,” she says on the phone later that night.

 

They’ve waited until after midnight. Darcy had meetings all day and Lizzie just got home from dinner. Dr. Gardner is - thankfully - a fully fledged person rather than a mere plot device like she is in _Pride and Prejudice_. They never run out of things to talk about.

 

“My mother?”

 

“You said she told you about the book.”

 

“She didn’t tell me about it. She left it for me.”

 

“Left it?”

 

“In a security deposit box. It was given to me after she died. Her will specified it.”

 

Lizzie’s breath catches. “Do you think she knew? Did she think that she would die young because of the book?”

 

“I believe so,” he says.

 

Tears prick the corners of her eyes and she hates the distance between them. She hates that they’re talking over the phone and the further distance because of that damn love story. Was it possible for them to ever be just friends?

 

“Your mother was not a character, Will,” Lizzie starts. She stands up. She can’t say this and sit still. “She wasn’t a character in someone else’s story. She was your mother. That matters.”

 

He is silent and Lizzie is afraid she’s transgressed too far.

 

And just as she’s about the apologize he says, in a low voice, “You never cease to amaze me Lizzie Bennet.”

 

***

 

“Give me a reason to hate you.”

 

They’re on the phone again. It’s become routine now that she’s working at Pemberley Digital. They trade notes and go over tomorrow’s script. What is the next step in their story?

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“You promised to help me not fall in love with you so give me a reason to hate you.”

 

He laughs. “Okay. Um, I’m a snob.”

 

“I already know that.”

 

“No, really. Quarterly Pemberley Digital has these workdays where the whole company volunteers around the city for a day. Last quarter I was assigned to work at a food bank and I complained that every client there kept eating junk food. I mean, didn’t they understand how unhealthy it is for you?”

 

“And?”

 

“And the manager pointed out to me that most of the people in the neighborhood did their grocery shopping at gas stations because there isn’t a Whole Foods or farmers market or some other fancy grocery store with organic options. There isn’t one within even an hour bus ride. I realized then how much of a complete snob I am without even trying.”

 

“You grew up affluent. There isn’t anything wrong with that.”

 

“There is if you can’t see beyond your own circumstances.”

 

She repositions herself on her bed and tucks the phone under her chin, “A story about you volunteering at a food bank is hardly the makings of I-loathe-you-to-eternity.”

 

“I snore?”

 

“Eh.”

 

“I really hate it when people move my stuff. Gigi used to rearrange it all the time and I would lose it on her.”

 

“Better, but still not doing it for me.”

 

“I like making money. I like making things that are successful. That probably makes me pretty shallow.”

 

“I can work with that.”

 

“And I’m a republican. And not one by default cause I’m rich. I truly believe in smaller government.”

 

“Yes, now that’s what I’m talking about. Tell me you watch Fox News.”

 

“God no,” he scoffs, “I don’t have time for reality television. I do read the Wall Street Journal every morning.”

 

She sits up and laughs. “Does your butler bring it to you on a silver platter?”

 

“If it helps you hate me then yes, yes he does.”

 

She smiles triumphantly, “I think we’ve accomplished it.”

 

“You hate me?”

 

“I could never fall in love with you.”

 

A pause.

 

“You’re welcome Lizzie Bennet.”

 

***

 

Episode 80?

 

Lizzie can’t talk about Episode 80.

 

***

 

“Have you ever thought about what if there was no book?”

 

Tonight it’s Darcy who starts their conversation. Lizzie wanders around her apartment picking up stray socks and general debris from the work week. When he asks his question though she stops what she’s doing. “What do you mean?” She stammers.

 

“If there was no book, do you think we’d have had some version of whatever this is?”

 

“Define the parameters.”

 

He blusters, “This isn’t a logic puzzle, Lizzie. Forget I asked. It was a ridiculous question.”

 

“No, I’m interested.” She leans against her couch. “Assuming you and Bing attended the Gibson wedding I do think we’d have met. Bing and Jane can’t be kept apart.”

 

“No they can’t,” he murmurs.

 

“So the question becomes if my first impression of you was a true one.”

 

“First impressions never are.”

 

“Ah,” she grins, “that’s not Darcy’s line. That’s my line.”

 

“I’m the one who says good opinions once lost are lost forever,” he counters. “So in the novel it’s my moral lesson to learn. I just got there faster than Fitzwilliam did.”

 

“That’s because you read ahead. Technically that’s cheating.”

 

“So do think it was true? Your first impression of me, I mean.”

 

She stands up, shifts on her feet, and tucks her chin. “I mean, when we danced at the Gibson wedding you knew about the book so how could my impression of you be true? The story began once we started that dance.”

 

“You know the story starts long before that moment.”

 

“But our story,” she cringes. “Not that we have a story. I mean we do. Have a literal story. But in real life we don’t really have a story. We do have a something. We’re partners or friends or something... I don’t know it all gets muddled sometimes.”

 

“Lizzie, it’s alright,” he says. “Like I said. It’s a ridiculous question. The book exists and we exist with it. There’s not coming back from that.”

 

“No,” she breathes, “there isn’t.”

 

There’s a pause and neither of them say anything. The silence is thick and Lizzie grips her cellphone with two hands.

 

“Will?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Whatever this is that we have...I’m glad I have it with you.”

 

***

 

Darcy sends Bing to her. It was the plan. Lizzie knew he was coming and she knew he needed to find out about her videos. In fact, she’s eager for him to watch them because she hopes that if he does, then maybe he’ll go to Jane. Maybe he’ll undo this mess that she and Darcy made.

 

But he doesn’t.

 

Instead, he just looks sad and it’s awkward.

 

She wrings her hands over it and calls Darcy in the middle of the day. She knows she’s not supposed to, but she can’t help it.

 

“We’ve got to tell them,” she says in a rush. She can hear people in the background and she’s pretty sure he just stepped out of a meeting for her.

 

“What happened?”

 

“We’ve got to tell them. It’s not right for us to play with people’s lives like this.”

 

“We’re not. We’re simply living ours.”

 

“Bullshit. We’re following a plot. A plot that hurts the people we love and for what? To get to the end of the story?”

 

“Yes, to get through this period of our lives and move on.”

 

And for the first time Lizzie asks herself what she’s going to move on to.

 

***

 

“Your brother is going to kill me,” Lizzie groans to Gigi after she makes her confession in front of Lizzie’s camera.

 

 _Protect our sisters._ That is the one thing they have in common. It is the one goal they share and here she is considering posting Gigi Darcy’s private life on the internet.

 

“No, no he won’t.” Gigi says, but Lizzie is pretty sure he will.

 

She asks him outright that night on the phone.

 

“Lizzie, it’s her story. Not ours,” he says. “Of course I don’t want you to post it, but like you said the other day - we can’t dictate people’s stories for them. Gigi deserves to tell her story if she wants.”

 

She curls up in bed. She’s under the covers and talking to Darcy is the last thing she’ll do today. It’s the last thing she’s done nearly every day since coming to Pemberely Digital.

 

“Do you think Bing and Jane would have stayed together if we hadn’t let Caroline break them up?”

 

_(Lizzie can imagine him sitting up in bed even though they are on the phone and she’s never been to his house. She knows he doesn’t sleep with a shirt on and she imagines he reads, before going to sleep. In her mind, his hair is always askew. It’s a rude image.)_

 

“I think,” he says. “I think he was too easily parted from her. If I was in love I don’t think I could just walk away. Not like that.”

 

“All the best love stories end with someone walking away.” Lizzie yawns. “Humphrey Bogart in _Casablanca_ , Audrey Hepburn in _Roman Holiday_ , Rhett Butler in _Gone with the Wind_.”

 

“Those are all movies.”

 

“And we’re literary characters. Not even popular ones at that. Obscure and underappreciated.”

 

He laughs, “Can you imagine if people had actually heard of us? What if there was a movie version of us and you and I watched it...or filmed ourselves watching it for one of your videos.”

 

“Ugh,” she groans, “it’s too late. This is all making my head hurt.”

 

There is a pause and then he says it quiet, almost as if she’s not supposed to hear him.

 

“I’m glad you’re real Lizzie. I’m glad you’re you and nothing like what I imagined.”

 

***

 

She gets a text from Darcy the Saturday morning of their tour:

 

_Glasses or no glasses?_

 

She looks at the photos he sends her and has to put the phone down. When she’s gathered herself back together she chews on her lip. Her response is as cheeky as those damn glasses.

 

_Wear the glasses. Lizzie Bennet needs to have her world rocked a bit._

 

He wears the glasses and she can’t help it. Love story or no love story - the truth is, she wants him.

 

***

 

They have a hard time hiding their friendship when she interviews him. They tape it three times. She’s the one who comes up with the line, “Gigi said you wanted me?” He chokes a little when she suggests it, but she reminds him they’ve got to rack up the tension a bit.

 

“You know what’s next? Right?” He reminds her.

 

She exhales. “I mean it’s already happened. Lydia and George are already...whatever they are. I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t. Actually you could say I drove her right toward him.”

 

“This isn’t your fault, Lizzie. I knew what George would do to Gigi and I didn’t stop it either.”

 

“But you didn’t know it was true. I do.”

 

“I knew it was a possibility and I didn’t move heaven and earth to prevent it. I don’t know if I could have stopped them because it wasn’t my choice to make. I could have told Gigi about the book, but would she have listened? I don’t know. Other people’s choices aren’t ours to make. We’re not above the laws of the real world just because we’re…”

 

“Words on a page?”

 

“Yeah, words on a page. We’re still people and once this damn book ends, I still want to be me.”

 

She wants to ask him what that means. Who is he? To him, she means. She knows who he is to her. He’s William Darcy. She knows who he is in the book. Romantic hero. But he keeps say he wants to be himself at the end of all this and she wonders what it that means to him exactly.

 

Lizzie exhales. “Whatever is going to happen just needs to happen and we’ll deal with it. The sooner we move along in our story, the sooner the hard part of hers will be over and I’ll be there. I’ll be there to help her through it.”

 

***

 

Neither of them expected the sex tape.

 

***

 

Knowing something is coming doesn’t make the blow hurt less. It doesn’t drain the color out of that picture George put up on the website. He took an image that was so beautiful - Lydia’s head is tipped back and she’s got that silly smile on her face - and he perverted it by commodifying her.

 

That bastard turned Lizzie’s baby sister into a thing to be bought and sold. Knowing that it was going to happen doesn’t numb the shock and anger and fear that clutches her gut when Charlotte sends her the link.

 

Rather, knowing makes it worse. Knowing comes with guilt and an acknowledgement of how small she is in the world. Even with all her foreknowledge she still can’t protect her baby sister.

 

***

 

“Get him,” she whispers when Darcy opens the car door. His driver is waiting to take her to the airport and from there Lizzie doesn’t know what’s going to happen.

 

Oh, she knows the story, but that doesn’t mean she knows what is going to happen.

 

He pulls her into him and they hug. Until this point they’ve barely touched. There is an invisible wall between them and they might as well be in the Regency era given how little actual physical contact they’ve had.

 

But now they grip tight onto one another.

  
“We’re almost to the end,” he places a swift kiss on the top of her head before escorting her into the car.

 

Lizzie wonders, vaguely, what Jane Austen was thinking when she did this to all of them. Was a love story really worth all this?

 

***

 

Books be damned.

 

Lizzie holds onto her sister and tells her she loves her. She knows in the books that Lydia is supposed to be vain and non-repentant, but Lizzie doesn’t care.

 

That Lydia isn’t her Lydia.

 

Just like Darcy’s mother and Gigi, Lizzie’s sisters aren’t secondary characters in her love story. They are real people and she’s going to hold onto them and tell them she loves them.

 

Books be damned.

 

***

 

She watches Gigi’s Domino videos alone in her bedroom. Her heart is in her throat when Darcy tries, in vain, to keep Gigi out of the search for George.

 

Lizzie understands. She understands because she tried to keep Lydia out of the story. She thought by doing so she was saving her sister from being her, but Lizzie can see now that leaving Lydia out of the story is what drove her to George in the first place.

 

She’s breathless watching Gigi’s bravery and her heart aches for Darcy. He’s running up and down the coast, tired and wane, because they’ve known this was coming for such a long time. They knew, but knowing didn’t matter. The world isn’t theirs to control.

 

It does make Lizzie wonder if all their efforts were perfunctory. Was everything that has happened to their families set in motion the moment they met on that dance floor? Or was Darcy right and did it all begin long before that moment?

 

She doesn’t know the answer, but Lizzie doesn’t like it. The idea that her choices didn’t matter unsettles her.

 

Her choices define who she is. If she’s not her choices she’d rather not be a person. She’d rather be a whisp of someone’s imagination.

 

***

 

He texts her when he buys the company.

 

She asks about copies. He promises to give them to Lydia and let her decide what to do with them. Lizzie suggests he wait. Lydia is still pretty broken.

 

 _Thank you,_  she writes him.

 

 _For you, anything,_  he writes back and she stays up at night trying to decipher what that means.

 

***

 

She imagines Bing’s return is in large part thanks to Darcy. In fact, she knows because Bing tells her so over dinner. She smiles into her wine glass and wonders.

 

Is this him trying to get to the end of the book or is it to make up for their mistakes?

 

It occurs to her that she has some making up to do as well. This isn’t all just on him.

 

***

 

In the beginning Darcy said that their story is about empathy. Well, there really isn’t anyone Lizzie has a harder time understanding than Caroline Lee.

 

And she gets that she should try. That’s the point of the story, right?

 

But nope, not going to happen. She just doesn’t have it in her.

 

But she invites Caroline to dinner because she’s not stupid. Bing and Jane? They’re the stuff of fairy tales. Lizzie is practical. Caroline Lee is part of her future. There is no moving on from Caroline. The most strategic, honest thing to do is to at least try, even if she has to grit her teeth through it. Lizzie will admit she’s relieved when Caroline turns her down.

 

***

 

Lizzie stares at her camera. She needs to make a video, but she doesn’t know what to say. She can’t explain to her viewers that this is the end of her story...or at least her story with them. They’re wrapping up plot lines faster than her mother can talk babies around Bing and Jane. Plot points keep walking through her families’ den.

 

But it doesn’t feel like the end for Lizzie. Rather she’s still stuck in… in whatever it is that she’s supposed to learn from this.

 

So she just stares at her camera. There are several videos of her talking and trying to figure out how she wants this to end.

***

 

She knows Darcy didn’t buy the company for her. He bought the company because that’s the story...or rather an interpretation of the original story. So when Lydia tells her, Lizzie has to feign disbelief.

 

But really all she wants to do is slow everything down.

 

***

**How NOT to Fall in Love with William Darcy**

 

by Lizzie Bennet

 

  1. Pay close attention to his hipster style and judge it mercilessly. The pretension in those bowties is obnoxious.

  2. He clears his throat before talking. It’s really annoying.

  3. Roll your eyes every time he mentions knowing someone you read about in school.

  4. How many times did he agree with Caroline today?

  5. That eyebrow...every time he quirks it, shudder! It’ll be good for your soul.

  6. Don’t ask about his parents.

  7. Don’t meet his sister.

  8. Don’t talk media theory.

  9. Don’t talk about your dual existence as literary characters. I know you want to because you’re scared about what this all means and he’s the one person you can talk about it with, but don’t. It’s not good for the heart.

  10. He said you’re not pretty. Doesn’t matter if later he recants it. Don’t excuse it because its a line from the book. Remember - he doesn’t think you’re pretty.

  11. Don’t touch him and whatever happens under no circumstances let him touch you. He has superior hands.

  12. He has a list of what makes an acceptable woman. _(Shut up, this point is not moot because its on your own list. You’re doing this out of self-preservation. He’s doing it because he’s a snob. It’s totally different.)_

  13. He’s square. You border on square. Do you realize how boring it would be to be in love with someone like that?

  14. He’ll judge you.

  15. He is embarrassed by your mother and sister.

  16. He’ll be embarrassed by you at some point.

  17. You will never be Caroline Lee. You don’t want to be her.

  18. You fight constantly.

  19. Your body feels loose around him as the ground is uneven. You don’t want that. You’ll constantly be falling down.

  20. Remember: if you fall in love with him you’ll never know if it was your choice or not.




  


***

 

“So call me back so we can chat….”

 

_Call me back and tell me how I’m supposed to feel about you._

_Tell me if this is real or if it’s because we’re a story in someone else’s head?_

_Tell me I’m strong enough not to fall in love with you._

_I can’t fall in love with you._

_Do you know what that would make me?_

***

 

He doesn’t call her back.

 

***

 

He doesn’t show up on her birthday or any night after that.

 

In Episode 98 she announces the launch of her own company.

 

In Episode 99 she announces her move to Chicago.  

 

In Episode 100 she says goodbye.

 

***

  
William Darcy walks away so Lizzie can be real.

 

He knows she won’t be, can’t be, stuffed into someone else’s happy ending.

 

 _That_ he did for her. _That_ had nothing to do with the book. It is the most selfless, romantic thing anyone has ever done for her and at night she rubs her skin to see if she’s still whole. She pinches herself and smiles into her pillow because _he loves her_.

He loves her independent of their story.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> For the sequel (from Darcy's POV), see I'm glad it's you (whatever this is)


End file.
